DENNIS DIPLOMACY

Headed back to North Korea. Thank you http://www.PotCoin.com for sponsoring my mission. I’ll discuss when I return.

Dennis Rodman is our de facto ambassador to North Korea. Chew on that. And try to swallow because…

a) Ambassador Rodman would prefer you to swallow.

b) You don’t need to worry about swallowing because Ambassador Rodman has special diplomatic “immunities.”

c) This is the current state of affairs in Bizarro World.

I think it’s important to add that Rodman’s well-publicized top-secret self-proclaimed “mission” to North Korea was sponsored by PotCoin.com, a “marijuana banking service.” (If anyone knows what kind of service this is, I require you to email me or comment below, for my and others’ edification.)

It is unclear whether Rodman is in cahoots with the Orange Man here, acting as a backchannel conduit between the two nations (which are increasingly similar in their leadership, as they now both boast sudden and unceremonious firings of high-ranking officials that don’t fall in line, sycophantic cabinet meetings that double as group head sessions, and despots who “pull it out” whenever provoked or just plain challenged.)

Rodman with a windswept Trump look

To be fair, Rodman began his one-man North Korean missions under our previous president (may he rest and relax and boogie board in incredulous peace). But it was clear then that Rodman was acting autonomously, so much so that in May of 2013, the White House chose not to even respond to Rodman’s following extemporaneous performance review, in which he said, “I’ll put it like this, Obama can’t do shit. I don’t know why he won’t do it.” And then added, “so do that bullshit.”

Rodman considers Kim (as he affectionately refers to his pal) as a friend and “a really awesome guy” — so awesome in his supreme awesomeness that he has jailed some 120,000 political dissidents in hard labor camps where they are systematically tortured, according to an Amnesty International 2016/2017 report. (Best-friend Kim takes mercy on the loyalists by starving them within an inch of their lives.)

Kim awesomely executed his uncle and recently had his half-brother supremely poisoned to death in a Malaysian airport by two female operatives who purported to believe they were participating in a reality game show. Suggested titles include: Let’s Make a Squeal,The Newly Dead Game, Zeal of Fortune, What’s My Antidote? and, of course, Family Feud. (Rodman was in talks to produce the The Bong Show but negotiations crumbled when his awesome friend Kim learned the show didn’t feature systematic poisoning of the losers.)

But the love between the two persisted, as evidenced in Rodman’s slightly less come-hither rendition of Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” which he sang to Kim Jong-un on the occasion of the tyrant’s 30th birthday:

And now, coinciding with Rodman’s visit is the sudden release — albeit in a coma — of Otto Warmbier, the American college student sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly trying to steal a regime propaganda banner from his Pyongyang hotel back in January 2016. The timing could be an attempt to distract from Warmbier’s pitiful state of return, or it could be Kim’s far less-than-humanitarian “I got your back” payback to Rodman, who got in trouble for admitting he did not give a damn about the detainment of American missionary Kenneth Bae back in 2013 (Rodman later admitted he was intoxicated at the time of his incoherent commentary on Bae’s predicament.) After backlash from the Bae family and the public at large, Rodman tweeted the following request to Kim on May 8, 2013:

I’m calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea or as I call him “Kim”, to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose.

Bae was eventually cut loose on November 8, 2014. So maybe this unlikely bro-code has some validity to it. Maybe Charles Barkley should be sent to Qatar! Hell, send Rob Gronkowski to Moscow stat. Vlad and The Gronk would kill it, Gangnam style.

I want to believe in Rodman’s diplomatic prowess, I really do. But this is a man fired from Celebrity Apprentice for designing a beauty campaign for Melania Trump in which he misspelled her name throughout. Trump forgave him but I don’t think Melania ever will.

Evil “Smizing”

In fact, Trump praised Rodman after his first North Korean mission (calling it “smart” and extolling how “street wise” he is), not unlike the way Trump praises Kim Jong-un himself, who our president has said he “would be honored” to meet.

As much as I hate to admit it, Rodman might indeed wield some influence with Kim, inasmuch as this is a relationship where both maniacs seem to get off on publicly currying favor with the other, proving how big and powerful they both are. Not unlike the way North Korean state media (i.e. Kim Jong-un) advocated for a Trump presidency, praising the then-candidate as “far-sighted” and called him a “wise politician”; or how Trump, extolling Kim’s assumption of power (gulp), called the supreme assassin a “pretty smart cookie.” Is this the current state of diplomatic affairs? I’ll call yours big, if you call mine YUGE?

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I used to produce news. Then I produced babies. Neither paid well. With a raw and irreverent take on life, politics and parenting — and the politics OF parenting — welcome to “180mph or Sleeping”: a blog, like my life, that functions in 2 distinct modes — full speed or not at all.